Back Yard Garlic

Garlic is among the easiest things to grow, and your own garlic will be so fresh and juicy compared to what you get at the supermarket. In our zone 6b garden, South Central Pennsylvania, we plant garlic in October and harvest it in early July. We have been planting a hardneck variety called German White. For this year, we added a few Siberian Red plants to compare the two.

2012 Garlic, late May

Clove from last year's crop

Last fall, we had enough garlic left from the summer harvest to plant for the following year. I saved the largest cloves for seed garlic. This year, we planted about 200 cloves. Each clove is planted about an inch deep. Space them about 6-8 inches and cover with a heavy layer of straw, about 6 inches. Then forget about them until spring. They will be one of the first plants to come up. In fact, ours sent up shoots in the late fall and many of them never really died back!

Garlic in May 2013, far left and far right beds

I leave the mulch on the plants until mid May, then remove it and add some compost. By about Memorial Day, the garlic are producing long scapes which contain a flower bud at each end. We follow conventional advice, which is to remove the scapes to allow the plant to put more energy into the bulbs. We use the scapes like green beans, put them in stir fries, and make pesto from them. There are lots of great recipes out there for fresh garlic scapes. 

In about another month, the garlic leaves will be getting pretty brown. We harvested June 30 here this year. Using Ed Smith's guidelines (The Vegetable Gardener's Bible), we look for the bottom few leaves to start turning yellow. I always pull a few test plants as well to be sure the bulbs are well formed and not starting to separate. You can eat them anytime. Ours were a little early this year. It's been very warm. Our soil is loose enough that we could simply pull the bulbs gently from the bed. I brush them off with my hand and pile them up.

Garlic, harvest day

The Siberian Red bulbs are smaller, but look great. We will do a taste test of our two varieties once they are cured.

To prepare them for long-term storage, I hang them in bunches of 6 or 7 in the garage. The greens and roots should be left on until they are dried. This year, I ran out of space so made a drying rack out of a trellis. They dry for 2 or 3 weeks, or until the skins are paper-like. Then, I cut the tops off and store them in our basement in baskets. Last year, they lasted until we ate them all, about January.